Virtually unwatchable unless (like me) you are a card-carrying Michael Findlay fan, this all-sex opus has its moments, but not many.
Findlay stars as the projectionist, forced at gunpoint by a nut in a ski mask to show reel after reel of porn. This is an excuse to fill the running time with hardcore loops, accompanied by foul-mouthed, nutty Findlay narration.
What gives this farrago some panache is that Findlay, a former avant garde underground/soft porn filmmaker, has been reduced to grinding out porn. Hardcore put him out of business, while his wife Roberta thrived for a while in the new format before turning to the horror genre. The metaphor of Findlay literally forced to project hardcore footage is obvious.
Artists like Findlay in the Sixties could express their wild imagination within the restrictions of what was acceptable in soft porn. But the "anything goes" world of hardcore ushered in a regimented & repetitive catalog of required shots to "deliver the goods". To personalize this filler is a pointless exercise; now that movies have been supplanted by homevideo & the internet, the result is today's multi-multi billion dollar industry devoted to generic porn.
Other than the recurring theme of fancy lingerie and black stockings, the loops are undistinguished, paced so that the money shots all come in the final reel, timed to the grindhouse audience's own rhythms. The alliterative and dirty-minded voice-over rant by Findlay, reminiscent of the purple prose from his '60s narrations & coming attraction patter, is worthy of a Brother Theodore, and consistently insulting to his target audience.
Breaking up the nihilistic tone is an extremely effective introduction where Findlay's camera wanders down the Deuce as Ruby Keeler warbles the theme from the classic 1933 film 42nd Street. We see the marquees of the Rialto I, Rialto II, the Harem and the Victory, playing "The Story of Joanna," "Divine Obsession" and "Heavy Load" among others. Findlay even shows the mainstream National theater around the corner, displaying "Snuff", a film derived from his footage that is his most famous work. The effect in 1976 was an ironic nostalgia for the golden days of Forty Second St. 50 years earlier, but watching now we get a strange nostalgia for the sleazy Forty Deuce of the '70s.
Findlay's ambivalence extends to the crappy soundtrack of jazz & funk, played real loud to keep the fans awake. It's library music, but he manages to include some diverting avant garde sounds from the great Don Cherry, too.
Technically the film is a mess, just loops intercut with establishing shots of buildings as Findlay purports to be presenting a documentary on prostitution -what's really going on inside cheap hotels and various apartment buildings in the Times Square area. In an era of pointless remakes, I'd like to see Ric or Ken Burns assigned to reboot this one; on second thought, NO.
